The Abomination That Was ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’
Let me start off by saying that I am a big franchise of ‘The Witcher’. I was first introduced through ‘The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’ video game, like many other individuals. It is one of my favourite games and is probably the longest game I played too. I won all of the trophies, finally achieving the platinum trophy after earning all of the Gwent cards (which I had to do twice when I realised I was unable to collect the Dandelion card in that playthrough, even though I already acquired every other card). When Netflix announced they were adapting this series, I was looking forward to it. In anticipation, I purchased the six books and read them all. I gained a deeper insight into The Witcher lore and loved following all of the characters throughout their individual journeys. All in all, I was quite excited about the series.
Main Show
Then, The Witcher Season One dropped. After bingeing through the entire season, I really LOVED it. I liked every second of the franchise. Whilst certain plots happened differently in the book series, it was close to the essence of the novels. As far as I can remember, it was a pretty accurate adaptation of the story and themes of its novel counterpart. Speaking of the latter, they did not shy away from the mature aspects of the books — The violence was graphical and the mature content was retained, such as with Yennefer’s transformation and Jinn sequences. I felt like it filled the void which was created with the ending of Game of Thrones. All in all, it felt like a TV show which maintained a degree of accuracy in its adaptation of the books and did not shy away from the mature content, which was a win-win in my books. I think most people enjoyed the first season too.
Then, The Witcher Season Two dropped. I remember watching the first episode and enjoyed it with Tormund playing as a bear, which felt a bit meta if you are aware of his character in Game of Thrones. So far, it was almost accurate to the book, although I am pretty sure that the vampire survived the encounter in the novel, but I could be mistaken. Anyhow, watching the rest of the season, it did feel like they were not following the book that all that much. I was trying to figure out what the issue was: Did I not remember the plots from the book, or was this season creating its own story? After reading various comments and reviews after I watched the season, it was clear it was the latter. The second season was largely disked by the traditional fans of the franchise. However, I must have been one of the few who still enjoyed it. I typically enjoy content which others don’t, as long as I have a fun time with it. Although, aside from the obvious violence, I did notice that some of the mature content appeared to be censored compared to the first season. It is almost as if they were ‘playing it safe’ for some apparent reason, hence it did not feel like Game of Thrones anymore. For me, this did not bare a good sign for the future franchise. I was beginning to wonder if the first season was a fluke, or if the show can redeem itself in its themes and accuracy to the books. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed both seasons.
Blood Origins
But then, everything changed with the arrival of ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’. I was initially looking forward to it when it was first announced, especially with Jason Momoa expected to be in the cast, although it looks like he was nowhere to be seen in the final product. As the trailers started to come out, I was still hyped. However, as I saw more and more promotional products, more and more the miniseries started to feel like a generic product. My expectations became soured the closer I came to the premiere of the show.
Cheap
After watching the miniseries, the doubts became a reality. This felt like a terrible and cheap show with minimal references to the lore of ‘The Witcher’. Aside from the presence of dwarves and elves (a generic component of typical fantasy settings), the only aspect connecting the show to the franchise itself was the event referred to as the ‘Conjunction of the Spheres’. There was quite a bit of mystery about how this came to be, but this is now unravelled in this cheap knock-off of a show. Not only that, but as this is described as a cataclysmic event in the book in which how everything came to be, I was expecting the aforementioned event to be a lot more esoteric in nature. Instead, there was just a brief glimpse of a few planets merging together, before switching to a random shipwreck of humans in contact with the elves. There should have been slightly more imagery. Simply put, just like Netflix’s Resident Evil adaptation, there was practically nothing concrete which connected to the overall lore of the franchise.
Lavish
Also, I was expecting the Elvish kingdoms before the Conjunction of the Spheres to be a lot more lavish. It was implied through the books and video games that elven ancestors were responsible for remarkable achievements in architecture and lived a great life before their human overlords came to be. In the miniseries, the capital (which I forgot how to spell) felt quite simplistic in nature. The throne room itself had a minimalistic look to it. One of the central characters wants to take back her ancestral sword from the throne room, which was located on a table with a bunch of other swords in the corner of the room. There was nothing else of note inside the throne room, except the one aspect which was convenient to the story. Looking at everything else, from the courtyard to the countryside, nothing yelled ‘The Witcher’ to me, or even something which we would naturally expect from pre-Conjuction Elvish society. They were essentially just humans with their own human-like problems. It was totally generic and there was nothing unique about it. I was expecting a show which was a lot richer in its storytelling.
Mature Content
Similar to season two, the mature content appeared to be heavily toned down compared to what we expect from the novels and games themselves, with the obvious exception of the violence. Season two did have some mature content in this area, but this was completely tamed down in this show, which does not bode well for any future instalments. This is a type of source material which should not be hindered down, just so people can ‘play it safe’. People want a mature adaptation of the material, not something orientated to a YA demographics. I remember a similar downgrade in quality between the first and second seasons of ‘Altered Carbon’ — I really LOVED the first season, but the second season felt like a cheap cable show.
Social Agenda
Also, there were a lot of moments in the series which felt indicative of the modern social climates. Netflix decided to turn Eredin into a queer character, even though there were no such indications of his orientation in the book. If there were no such romantic details of the characters in the books in general, it can naturally be assumed they are heterosexual because this is the preference of the overwhelming majority of society. For Netflix to decide to queerify this character, it was likely driven by real-life social-political agendas as opposed to doing with anything in the lore itself. The sad reality is, if this show was made over a decade ago, it would have felt more organic.
In a similar fashion, it was established that a certain character wanted revenge on a certain empress because she was responsible for the death of his clan and who also personally slit the throat of his sister. It was his responsibility and drive to kill this Empress in an act of revenge. Instead, the empress was essentially stabbed by his female colleague, probably in an effort to gain a bit of recognition for its female-female action, or to gain notoriety with a female saving the day. There is nothing wrong with any of that in of itself, but the way the show delivered such moments felt a bit too heavy-handed and forced in just for the sake of it. If it was handed a bit more organically, it could have been acceptable.
General Reception
Admittedly, it has only been several hours since the release of the miniseries. So far, it looks like the reception is as equally terrible. With only 377 votes on IMDB so far, the scoring so far is 2.6/10:
With 12 critics so far on Metacritic, there still appear to be more dislikes than likes:
Similarly, on Rotten Tomatoes, it appears that the show was both a critical flop and a creative failure:
Whilst the numbers of ratings are not significant yet to gain an adequate sample to determine the viability of the miniseries, I do not expect them to affect the overall feeling of the story and show in general.
Final Thoughts
Everything indicates that the show was failed experiment. This is what happens when a corporate company attempts to adapt a source material without actually adapting the source material. It’s ‘The Witcher’ only by name. After this adaptation, alongside Resident Evil, hopefully, Netflix will learn a thing or two and will focus more on making faithful adaptations in the future.
